Many homes, offices, and buildings contain machines, such as refrigerators and washing machines, which have confined areas with doors that are secured or even sealed by automatic latching (mechanical, magnetic, etc.). Children, particularly small children, are known to explore and climb into such confined areas, which may result in serious injury or death if the child becomes trapped inside for an extended period of time or if the machine is activated while the child in within the machine.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to detect the presence of a child within a confined area of a machine and to prevent activation of the machine while a child is inside.